Caroline Disler Speaks At TEDxWaterloo

Susan notes: Thanks to TED for making TED Talks downloadable and embeddable, and for providing the biographical information that goes along with them.

Caroline Disler is a master of translation. With reading knowledge of many modern languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Polish, modern Greek and Arabic, as well as working knowledge of ancient languages including Sumerian, Akkadian, Edomite, Ancient Hebrew, Egyptian, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, she has unique perspective on the sources of human thought.

In addition to translating modern books and academic papers from German, French, Dutch, and Italian, her work and teaching reveals how we come to think the way we do, examining the largely unexplored role of translation itself in ancient history.

Drawing from original source material such as pagan Ugaritic epics and original Moabite, Babylonian, Syriac and Coptic texts, her studies of history, society and translation at York University explore inter-cultural transfer of information from the dawn of writing to the present day.

Her personal interests, apart from the pleasures of family and friends, range from woodworking to calligraphy, from water skiing to ice hockey. She has raised six children and counts motherhood among her greatest accomplishments.